Bob Earl

Bob Earl (born January 13, 1950) is a former American racing driver from Claremont, California. He began racing in Formula Ford in 1972 and was the 1973 national champion. In 1979 he made his professional debut in Formula Atlantic and won the 1981 Macau Grand Prix (which at the time was contested using Atlantic cars), becoming the only American to do so. He moved to sports cars in 1985 and drove a Pontiac Fiero for Huffaker Racing in the IMSA GTU series for two years. He moved up to the GTP cars in 1986 driving for a prototype for Spice Engineering. Earl and the Spic team earned a class victory at the 24 Hours of Daytona in 1987. He continued with Spice in GTP class in 1988, but in 1989 moved to Roush Racing's Lincoln-Mercury effort in the GTO class, capturing class honors at Daytona. He moved to the Nissan GTP factory team in 1990 and captured the 12 Hours of Sebring among other victories. He stayed with Nissan until they left the series in 1993. For the 1993 season he competed in the Camel Lights prototype class in a Acura powered Spice. He retired as a competitor after that season to become a driver coach. In 1996 he was hired to start the Derek Daly Academy at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. In 2000 he returned home to the Marin County to resume freelance driver coaching. Since then he has developed a keen interest in racing video games, particularly Gran Turismo 3, where he has completed all license tests at the "Gold" level. [http://www.firingsquad.com/features/bobearlracinggt3/] He has also developed and sells the "Virtual Racing Chassis", an advanced racing cockpit for use with simulation video games. Bob is currently the Technical Director at the Jim Russell Racing School at Infineon Raceway in Sonoma California.

External links

* [http://www.bobearlracing.com Official website]